Weekly HOMILY for April 6, 2014: 5th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A -- Relationship Before Creed

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In 2014, I am facilitating a 12-week interactive online course in contemplative prayer and action for priests with Saint Luke Institute.  Please visit SLIconnect.org to learn more:  https://www.sliconnect.org/product/living-god-program-contemplative-life-2/

5^th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

St. Francis of Assisi (Derwood, MD (Upper Rockville)

April 5-6, 2014

Relationship Before Creed

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

A Personal Relationship

To Christians of the world, Pope Francis has recently written: “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ. 

“I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. Being a Christian is not an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with a person.

And here comes a promise from our holy father: “Thanks to this encounter with God’s love, we are liberated from our narrowness and self-absorption.  We become fully human when we become more than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves.”

In those riveting words Pope Francis is calling us to a personal relationship with Jesus with promises of liberation and transformation.

What could this liberation and transformation mean for us?  How might we achieve such a personal relationship?

Both the Gospel story of the raising of Lazarus and Pope Francis tell us that the liberation and transformation will come from a relationship in which there is listening and responding to Jesus on our part. 

The Gospel, a Model for Liberation and Transformation

In our Gospel story this evening/morning, Jesus is comforting Martha in the pain she is experiencing over the untimely death of her brother, Lazarus.

In doing so, notice that Jesus offers her a creedal statement, that is, a statement for her to believe in, namely, that he is, “the resurrection and the life.” The statement calls for her belief. In fact the word “belief” appears 8 times in that passage we heard.

And then, Jesus presses the point of Martha’s believing when he asks her, “Do you believe this?”  Martha’s response is crucial.

Notice Martha does not reply, “Yes, I believe this fact about you.” Instead, she says: “I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.”  So Martha does not profess her belief in a teaching, not even Jesus’ teaching on resurrection!

Instead, she testifies that she believes in Jesus, the person.  Her statement is about her personal encounter, her relationship with Jesus, and this will be the core of her faith.

It is this believing in Jesus himself that the passage is all about.

Steps in the Liberation and Transformation

Besides having us shift from creedal belief to personal relationship, the Gospel spells out how the liberation and transformation of Martha come about.

First, she makes time to sit in silence with Jesus. We do that by carving out 10 or 15 minutes while the house is silent in the early morning hours, before anyone is stirring. We do it perhaps over a cup of steaming coffee or tea.

She then looks into his eyes and feels his presence. We do that by reading a short passage of a Gospel and listen to Jesus speaking to us and allowing the words to sink in, to take root.

Martha acknowledges her pain and sadness, “Lord, if you’d been here my brother would not have died.” We do the same in speaking our own suffering, loss or disappointments to Jesus.

Martha then surrenders herself to the person of Jesus. She rests in that presence. She trusts in that presence. We do that with a similar resting, savoring, floating in God’s presence to us

And out of the grace-filled moment, locked in that life-giving gaze of the Lord, she proclaims a new way for herself to live: “Yes, Lord I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

Conclusion

Pope Francis has it right when he says that through this encounter with Jesus Christ,  “we are liberated from our narrowness and self-absorption.  We become fully human when we become more than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves.”

The liberation for Martha and for us is from death itself and from all the smaller deaths and dying to self that we encounter each day.

The Gospel isn’t only a story of two sisters who grieve the death of their brother; it is our story and our struggles, sadness and grieving, and the liberation and transformation that are ours in our relationship with Jesus Christ.